from Guy Debord

We are in agreement as to the articles chosen for translation in Der Deutsche Gedanke [The German Thought]. You ask if we have unpublished articles. I have only the reponse (attached[1]) to the questionnaire published by the District of Paris, concerning the planning of urbanism at the end of the century. This is, and remains, unpublished in French. Naturally, it would be less interesting for a German journal. But perhaps you can cite this inquiry, and the S[ituationist] I[nternational]'s response to it, by providing extracts? (The ideology of urbanism extends to all the modern capitalist countries.)

Here in Paris, we prepare the editing of I[nternationale] S[ituationniste] #8. Do you have an article you want to publish in this issue? Does [J.V.] Martin have one? I can translate and adapt his basic English, but I like his French better.

Indeed, [Jorgen] Nash is only the small, advertising-specialist poet that you say he is. We have already responded enough to him; it is not necessary to be involved in a polemic that is too serious with someone so weak and comically adversarial. But, at the same time, we know that present -- and future -- Nashism has a meaning much stronger than Nash; obviously, it is the entirety of the "artistic" tendency that works to divert situationist positions and projects in the framework of the old art (that is to say: current society).

We have found and we will always find this enemy-tendency around and even among us. I believe that it is a good weapon for us to definitively define "Nashism," because it makes him the hero and model of this tendency. And he is so ridiculous that he can't be very dangerous.

I haven't seen [Asger] Jorn for a long time. He wrote me from Italy to say that, in America, he showed a painting called Uwe Lausen, a young poet imprisoned.[2] I think that his position is more and more on the exterior of the SI, but sympathetic. And, until now, non-Nashist. It isn't necessary to count on "necessary" economic aid in the future that comes from such-and-such an individual (all individuals are mortal). All of our journals must soon manage to support themselves (on their own sales). Nevertheless, in the following weeks, Jorn must pay off the rather heavy, old debts to our French printer. If they aren't paid, these debts will completely ruin our credit here. But he is committed to paying them off. Moreover, he has subjected himself to heavy economic difficulties after the commercial disaster of his June [1962] exposition of "modified paintings." Of course, keep this information to yourselves, that is, you and Martin. That way, it doesn't risk being learned by the Nashists.

As to the format of D.G., choose what you think is the most striking for Germany: for the visual habits of German readers today. If S.R.[3] has the same format as I.S., maybe D.G. should have it too?

The question of money: naturally, we lack it greatly. We must pay for several advertisements, which extend the commercial basis for our journals. In Paris, it is the same thing. The idea of printing D.G. here should be retained only as a last resort. Everything seems two or three times less expensive in Denmark. Have you organized any financially useful expositions? I've already asked Martin: do you still want copies of "Memoires" to sell and thus pay for the first issue of D.G., that is, if you have already sold the first 20 copies at their full price, which is very high?

I have several letters from Rudolf Gasche. I know that he has written for the first issue of the "De Jong Times."[4] He says that he had the stupidity to write a second article on the Spur trial, intended for issue #2, which still hasn't appeared. But he assures me that he will now no longer do it.

We will see: he is interested in us, and now he knows that our door closes forever for those who enter into friendship with Nash. It will be necessary for you to speak to him [Gasche], he seems good. It is normal that he advances with prudence, because we met him by chance, in a cafe, while he was still traumatized by his first contact with the situationist meeting of February [1962], when he arrived with the Spurists, only to see them immediately excluded.

As to the cooperation of Robert Neumann, I'm preparing a negative for I.S. #8[5] (as an example of journalistic confusion concerning the SI). I will re-send you the article in several days. I don't believe that -- before becoming better known -- we should make jokes about people who work clandestinely for the SI in enemy institutions.

P.S. Concerning Martin: something isn't clear to me. Have the journalists mentioned in your letter of 31 August (Luebecker, Thorsen, L.K. Larsen, etc.) collaborated with the Nashist falsification? Or have they refused this falsification?

Have I already provided you with the address of Claude Seiden, a journalist for Demokraten in Arhus? I met him three or four years ago in Denmark. He seemed sympathetic.

[1] Note on the consultation intended to define "The Parisian region at the end of the century," 4 July 1962.

[2] In fact, this painting would not be shown until November 1962.

[3] Situationistisk Revolution, the journal of the Scandanavian section, of which the first issue appeared in October 1962.

[4] A designation for The Situationist Times, founded in August 1962 at Hengelo (Netherlands), by Jacqueline de Jong and Noel Arnaud.

[5] Published in the German journal Pardon. Cf. I.S. #8, p. 25.

(Published in Guy Debord, Correspondance, Volume 2, 1960-1964. Footnotes by Alice Debord. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! May 2005.)